Music: TGIF-Le Tigre
Otsukarasama desu iiiiindeeed. This is the magic phrase at work… you hear it passing through the halls, in between classes, running to and fro for props, coming to work, leaving work. It’s kind of a thing we do. Its meaning in English is to sympathise with those who have, or are going to work hard and may or may not be tired. When someone starts the day, rather than say hi, you say “Otsukarasama desu!”, when you are leaving for the night, those that see you leave before them will throw a little “otsukarasama desu” at ya. Exactly translated it means, “You must be tired.”
I’m assuming that my strut in in the morning, consisting of throwing open the door, raising my hand and pretty much shouting (more of a morning call.. like a pretty bird…) “GoooOOoood Mooorning!!!”, may be slightly innappropriate… slightly. I always get that…”oh god, she’s happy again…. but I can’t help but smile myself” smile from Manager.
Anyways. Point is, these ladies (only girls at my branch…) are Otsukarasama desuing you everywhere you turn. It is starting to lose its meaning. Obviously, it is the polite way to greet your coworkers. Now that Leah and I are superheroes in the language of Japanese (neck collar pull..), it’s pretty much all we hear at work. Before our new found fluency I found it odd how often my co-workers would tell me I looked tired. I mean common… do I look that bad?? I am wearing makeup… Now I realize the joy of languages… words do not easily translate. Telling someone they look tired in plain old English is kind of like asking someone if they are sick when they’re not… you know you can’t look that good. But, Otsukarasamadesuing someone is kind of like sympathizing or letting them know that you know they have been, or are working hard.
Its nice to hear, but it starts to sound a little too obligated for me. When you leave work before others, you are meant to say “Osaki ni shitsurei shimasu.” Which means “I’m sorry i’m leaving before you.” and in response whoever is there to hear you says “You must be tired (otsukarasama desu).” When you have to say it does it really mean anything anymore???
But since you asked (or rather stated), yes, I am tired! I just got back from a crazy trip with my mom and my aunt, and my manager is already throwing another class at me. And a few more kids… juuuust to make it that much more fun…Furthermore, more parent observation days are coming and supplementary summer seminars or something are coming up (hmmmm… teaching alliterations… )
Anyways, having my mom and my aunt here was aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawesome. Just faaaantastic! I was expecting it to be weird when I first saw them, but it felt like it was normal to have them here. We did everything together for eleven days, and it was great! They came to Toyama, bought combini beers with me, met Nami, came into Amity, saw my apartment, went to my starbucks, had dinner with Leah, Tannis, Natalie and I, had martinis with me at the place that we get martinis! Just great:D.
Our first stop was Tokyyyyyo! Tokyo is still sooo cool 
. We went to Harajuku, Asakusa, took boat rides, went to museums and gardens and hung out in Shibuya.
We then went on to Kyoto, definitely, (and maybe obviously) my favourite city in Japan. We saw so many ancient things, full of history and beauty. My favourite was the Sanjosangen-do Temple, rebuilit in 1260 A.D after it was burnt down in 1249 (it was founded in 1164) and is 390 ft. long. It is lined with 1001 standing images of thousand-armed gold Kannon, in the center is the dominating, giant gold Kannon. Along the front of the 1001 Kannons are the main gods of Buddhisms. There is so much history that I can’t really go into great detail here… but the Kannon is said to have eleven faces and one thousand arms. The most beautiful images were carved by some dude named Tankei, a most famous sculpter at the age of 82 during the Kamakura period. Also it is belived that Kannon can transform himself in to 33 different figures …. therefore 1001x 33 = 33033…. it is furthermore, believe that one can find the face of a loved one among the multiple images of the Sanjusangen-do. Segoi ne! This place blew my mind. Canada’s like a newborn baby…
Another favourite was an amazing exhibition on Kyosai… if you’ve never heard of him, check him out. The old art pieces were amazing. We spent four days in Kyoto, but I think I could have spent four more. There is tonnes to see, and its true what they say, Kyoto is the heart of Japan.
We hit up Osaka afterwards and the highlight would definitely have to be Kobe. We spent the morning touring around the dozen or so (old) sake breweries. I learnt how sake was made, the old and new way, and how to decipher good sake from not so good sake. One place still brewed their sake the same way they did back in 1751 (when the place was founded!) and they definitely had some good stuff. The guy that worked at this place gave us a taste of 5 different kinds of sake, ranging from sweet to dry, and ok to top dollar stuff. Nothing like a sake brewery tour to start off the day!
The ladies continued on their three work tour of Japan, while, a slave to Amity, had to head back. After eleven wonderful days of freedom, I had to return to the grind. My first day back, one of my favourite little buddies Isa greeted me at the door holding up his pudgy little hand to show me his new toy cars. How can you not enjoy going back to work when there’s a priceless little peach waiting for?
Thanks for reading! It was a long one! Otsukarasama desu!
